Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/330

 politico-economic homilies too seriously. He should be reminded that his bank, as trustee for accumulated money, measures the value of this money in the same way—not by its looks or its weight or by its convertibility into gold but by what it commands per hour, in the way of effective effort. It is measured, in short, by its rate of interest, and this, if stripped of legend, convention and the absurd stigma of usury, is simply the hourly effort men will exert, ever and above what is necessary for their sustenance, in return for the certified freedom, or control of value, that other men will jeopardize. Whether we call it money or certified freedom it has, at any rate, a very definite rental value as we can see by the daily quotations in the money market. All that is novel in the foregoing argument is the contention that this value should be measured as precisely as possible before it is certified.

The apologetic explanation to the scientist for laboring an obvious point so long is that it is necessary to demonstrate to the layman (who is most involved, and least concerned) that the employment of our present so-called “gold” dollar as a measure of value is not only useless but is tragic. And apologies are quite properly due to the scientist, for it must be admitted that the calculations just made are futile. The dollar side of the equations means nothing until we elect the moment of conversion; and the estimated yield has no validity for several reasons, which may be stated as follows:

First.&emsp;The yield we have been discussing is not only based upon so-called “gold” dollars, which have no more scientific meaning than “brass” kilowatts; but it has unfortunately no relation to the net product of current effort limited by area and time in a region of order, since it disregards a vital inverse factor, owing to our incalculable postponements of taxation, which will later be imposed upon those luckless producers of value who fall under the jaundiced eye of the “progressive”; and, still later, be imposed upon the more helpless thrifty who see the demand value of their tokens of value diluted by whimsical adjustments called “reform.”

Second.&emsp;What we have been dealing with as net yield is the product of a flow deplorably choked by arbitrary friction—